DOMESTIC ARTS

Evening Star, Issue 19001, 24 July 1925, Page 3

DOMESTIC ARTS

ADDRESS BY MR FRANK TATE .VICTORIAN METHODS. At the Home Science School yesterday Mr Frank Tate (Director of Education in Victoria) delivered an address to students on homo science teaching in Victoria. Amongst other things, ho described the schools of domestic arts which they had endeavored to develop in the poorer quarters of the big cities. The girls went in to these schools at about the ago of twelve to have the last two years of their schooling devoted to domestic arts. Cooking, laundry work, sowing, and household management were all taught, and the schools wore run by the girls themselves so far as the ordinary work was concerned. They also did the work for the attached cottage in which some of the teachers lived. The parents made no complaint. They were glad to have their girls taught to he useful. A class of girls would go down with a teacher to purchase in the early morning the food supplies for several days. Sometimes a class would have a carcass of mutton cut np before them by a .butcher, and the various parts and prices explained to them. Food values would later he explained. Another exercise would be in the laundry, where the children would bring garments to he “ done up.” At au exhibition in 1922 1,000 girls marched past each clad in a dress made by herself with every detail of the cost worked out by herself and attached. The actual work in the cottage was particularly important. The girls made the beds of the teachers, and as they made the bed so the teacher must lie. It was a, very serious thing to make the bed of the" principal all wrong. (Laughter.) Each girl had the whole gamut .of household work to do before the course was ended. These _ {girls also took the ordinary merit certificate, and their work in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and so on was rather above tho average. The system was developing a fine, self-reliant, serviceable body of girls. Beyond the two years’ course they wore developing further specialised courses. He went on to describe something of their extension work in country districts. The latest thing done was the running of a special train of about twenty large carriages brilliantly painted and beautifully fitted np with exhibits. The displays were full of information of all kinds for farmers and two of the carriages were devoted to domestic science. They T e train to little country sidings, and the real difficulty was that so much interest was aroused and so many people gathered that it was impossible for them all to see the display. Ho believed that adult educational work ought to he run, and to he run vigorously, throughout New Zealand and Australia. They had a verv fine field of work hero. It ought to he tackled at both ends, not merely the work in the school, but in the home. He hoped .the, authorities here would give sufficient support to the Home Economics Association to enable it to develop along thoroughly sound and useful lines. Ho drew attention to the wonderful efficiency of the system of adult education that lias been developed in Denmark. Tho real wealth of a country was estimated by the number of healthy and happy homes. If they could do anything to | increase the happiness and efficiency of ! tho homo they might to ho permitted i and encouraged In do it. (Loud api pi a use.) Professor Strong briefly thanked Mr I Tate for !iis most informative and inspiring address.